Plebgate: Met sacks fourth police officer over Andrew Mitchell row

A Met Police officer was today sacked for gross misconduct after a probe found she breached standards of “honesty and integrity” during Plebgate.

Investigators linked Pc Susan Johnson to information leaked to The Sun, which later printed a story that led to the sacking of Tory minister Andrew Mitchell. She is the fourth officer to be dismissed over the scandal.

Her sacking was announced by Scotland Yard as Home Secretary Theresa May told the Police Federation, whose members also became embroiled in Plebgate, its public funding will be cut.

Mr Mitchell had argued with officers who stopped him cycling through the main Downing Street gate in September 2012. He was later accused of calling one a “f***ing pleb”. He denies using the word “pleb” but admits swearing.

Another officer, Keith Wallis, was this year found to have lied about witnessing the row and was sentenced to 12 months’ jail. In a statement today the Met said Ms Johnson was not on duty at the time of the incident in Downing Street. It went on: “The Operation Alice investigation team found evidence that a person closely connected to Susan Johnson contacted The Sun on September 20 and that around that time the two exchanged texts and a phone call.

“It also found that later that same day Keith Wallis emailed Susan Johnson a copy of the email that he had sent to his MP falsely claiming to have witnessed the incident at Downing Street.

“On September 25 he told her he had met his MP. At no time did she report the matter to a senior officer.”

There were murmurs at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth today as Mrs May told it: “It is not acceptable that when the Federation is sitting on vast reserves worth tens of millions of pounds, it is in receipt of public funds to pay the chairman, general secretary and treasurer.

“We said we’d reduce this spending from £320,000 to £190,000 a year but I can announce today this funding will be stopped altogether from August.”

She also said officers will no longer automatically become members of the Federation but will have to opt in.